7 stories to read this weekend

The chilly weather is here, and that means all of us have a little more time to sit at home and read and, of course, enjoy time with the family. To supplement your newspaper, here are seven of my recommendations:

Narcissism is good, or something like that, when it comes to leaders of a company (or a country). Our friend Reed Hastings of Netflix and the late Steve Jobs are good examples. Here is a psychologist’s take on the debate.

The Internet has become part of our external memory system. This shift should make us think, and rethink, what user experience should be. Cassandra Moore recommends that websites consider elements of transactive memory. This is a dense but fantastic read.

On picking up the phone rather than emailing – it is all about finding the right tool for the appropriate moment and the various modes of communications we have invented are small bits of the big picture. Too often we fall into using one tool or the other because it is convenient. The problem space is enormous and I think we will see a lot of progress over the next few decades – perhaps much more than we have seen to date.